Josephus does not tell us that Christianity is true, and Christians do not need Josephus to tell them that Christ is risen. But Christianity makes claims about things that happened in public history under identifiable rulers, priests, and governors. For that reason, testimony from outside the church matters.
Today, the longing for cultural Christianity on both the left and the right hearkens back to an older version of Christendom that was a mixed blessing for the church in the western world. The cultural mediation of Christian views on created order has certainly benefitted the civilization we’ve inherited. But the gospel itself isn’t something that can be reduced to cultural mediation either. Instead, the gospel as a message stands apart from all human accomplishments and achievements, no matter how beneficial they might be.
The student of Scripture should always have a map open next to their Bible as they read. If possible, they should also travel to Israel, not to make a pilgrimage, but to see the context of the land in which these stories took place. These are not fairy tales made up about fictional fantasy lands; these are stories about real people in real places interacting with a real God.

All Articles

The 'church' is neither your mega-complex nor is it you alone with your own private devotions.
Throughout the centuries, “Inferno” has also played a large role in the development of Christianity, particularly in the Western Medieval church.
When orthodoxy becomes a Law, heterodoxy can feel like the Gospel.
He is significant, not as a founder of his own movement, but for setting the procrustean bed of the particularly American church with its dogmatizing yet broad ecumenical stances.
Temporal resurrections do not save us, but instead direct us to look for life, even in death. Easter zombies and the like direct our attention to the ultimate promise given in Christ, and the implications of this promise for the whole world.
All family trees and genealogies reveal awkward knots and twists. But through the root of Jesse, and the line of Israel, came Jesus to offer us a new name.
The initial sin, therefore, was not the eating of the forbidden fruit but rather listening to a cynic question and intentionally misinterpret God’s goodness
In our own lives, we might find that the Law is not an alien word, whether we call it our conscience or our values, our Holy Writ, or our municipality’s laws and regulations
On account of God’s graciousness in Jesus, we are the ones who don’t do anything
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy works for me, not because it substitutes a temporal and flimsy antidote to my problems but because it points me to the God who has adopted and baptized me
Despite the death all around us, the death that is assured us, we know there is a way out.
The celebration of He who came in humility, who would upend the Kingdoms of this world, was eclipsed by men grasping at the power of each other’s supposed kingdoms.